Why we love macho men... sometimes. Broody women want a beefcake - but go for Mr Softy if you want a happy ever after

The other day I nipped round to my neighbour Maggie's to borrow something, and I found her curled up on the sofa watching a re-run of an episode of Father Ted.

Baby-faced Ardal O'Hanlon, aka Father Dougal MacGuire, appeared doing something typically gormless, but Maggie's reaction was: 'Aw he's so cute, wouldn't you just love to give him a hug?'

It wasn't the first thought to pop into my mind - I'd rather get up close and personal with David Morrissey, who was on another channel - but then that could be because I'm not as advanced in years as my neighbour.

New research backs up the idea that at different life stages we change in what characteristics we find attractive.

Women change their partner preferences towards more masculine men when they are fertile and can potentially become pregnant.

The theory goes that masculine, testosterone-fuelled men have 'good genes' that can be passed on to children.

'The flip side to that is choosing very masculine males brings problems,' says Dr Anthony Little of the University of Stirling.

He says that masculine-looking men are seen as dominant, but they're also seen as likely to make bad fathers, be more aggressive, and perhaps be philanderers.

'The rest of the month then, when a woman is not fertile, her preferences switch to more feminine guys, who might make better long-term partners and fathers.'

But fertility doesn't just vary through the month, it varies through life; a woman's ability to get pregnant diminishes after her mid-thirties and stops after menopause - could this mean that women of different ages find different male qualities attractive?

Little tested this idea in a study involving 9,000 women ranging from pre-pubescent girls to post-menopausal women up to age 60.

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The subjects were asked to say which they preferred of pairs of digitally altered male faces; one of each pair was slightly feminised and the other had heavier masculine features.

Women between the ages of 15 and 45 tended to prefer the masculine-looking face, but the pre-pubescent girls and the post-menopausal women - both groups who were in no position to get pregnant - were more likely to prefer the feminine-looking men.

Women of different ages find different male qualities attractive - such as broody women wanting masculine men, like David Morrissey, pictured with Sharon Stone

Once you've hit menopause, says Little, you're not going to be too
interested in 'good genes', and might prefer someone who could make a
good companion.

So what causes this turn-around? It looks
like the culprits are hormones. Scientists found that young women on
hormonal contraceptives didn't demonstrate any of the preference shifts
for masculinity that normally-cycling women show.

This is put down to the fact that the pill wipes out the spike in
the level of the hormone oestrogen, which happens when a woman is at
her most fertile.

Something similar, then, could be happening at menopause when oestrogen levels drop.

GIRL POWER

Some studies show that testosterone levels in women change according to the status of their occupations

Professor Peter Gray, a hormone specialist at the University of Utah,
agrees with psychiatrist Dr Louann Brizendine, author of The Female
Brain, who suggests that during the menopausal transition women may
redirect their energy towards their children and grandchildren at their
partner's expense.

In light of this, Little's results make perfect sense; if your concern is to look after an extended family, you're going to be attracted towards cooperative nice people rather than snarling, rugby player-type mega-hunks.

The shift to caring for children and grandchildren points to two complementary theories as to why we have the menopause at all - after all we are the only animal where females live on for a long period after reproduction.

One theory is that since giving birth gets more hazardous as we get older, our bodies are programmed to stop getting pregnant at around 50 to make sure we will be around to raise our last child to independence.

The other idea is about being a granny; you have time to switch your
efforts to helping with your grandchildren and there's evidence that
children do better when they have a granny around.

So where
does that leave the masculine male as he gets older? Little thinks it's
a possibility, but for some of these guys, they may get by simply go
for younger women.

Less fertile women may find 'softer' men, such as Ardal O'Hanion, attractive

'High-testosterone men are more likely to get divorced than lower-testosterone men,' he says.

And such men may be more likely to attract younger women. There's evidence that masculine men are likely to have higher status, higher salaries and a study showed that financial traders in the City made more money if they had higher levels of testosterone.

Testosterone levels do have a habit of dropping off with age - men don't face a 'manopause', they don't cease producing sperm and become infertile.

Does this mean that men mellow as they get older? According to personality psychologist Alex Weiss of the University of Edinburgh, most men - and women - become less impulsive, less gregarious as well as becoming more agreeable after the age of 30.

But around 65 the only thing that changes is how kind, cooperative and modest we are. At some point everything else levels off but agreeableness keeps going up,' says Weiss.

Life beyond menopause sounds like a picture of niceness and harmony, although I've got a few more years of hankering after hunky men before I settle down with my cocoa to watch Father Ted.

I'm hoping that then I'll be snuggled up with a nice, kind and agreeable man.